1701. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123800 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 4:25 pm

Dennett:
-Consciousness Explained
-Elbow Room
(-Sweet Dreams)
(-Brainstorms)

Paul Churchland:
-Engine of Reason, Seat of the Soul (PM me about that, if you're interested - no need to spend money)
-A Neurocomputational Perspective
-Neurophilosophy at Work

Patricia Churchland:
-Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain
-Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy

Chalmers:
-The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

For the Churchlands, one should have an understanding of neural networks (PM me about that, too if you're interested) - I would chose one or two of their books, no need to buy all of those I mentioned.


Also, there is a nice anthology of Philosophy of Mind, including one essay by Daniel Dennett, one by Paul Churchland, one by Thomas Nagel and one (or two?) by David Chalmers, as well as other modern and classical papers or excerpts, if you don't want to spend a lot of money on several elaborated theories and rather some money on an overview of different historical and contemporary views:

"Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings" by David Chalmers [Editor]

1702. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123793 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Yes, I love Dennett's work. But he's quite informal at times. I would seriously recommend reading the Churchlands (Paul and Patricia) also.

Dennett is a (teleo)functionalist, the Churchlands are eliminative materialists - and work with neurosciences - especially neural networks. As - for materialists, this is what it is about - I highly recommend their work.

And for a contrary view, read Chalmers and Nagel (who think that there is more to the mind than the physical structure and events in/of the brain).

1703. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123784 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Always glad.

My problem with the various introductions to formal logic (and the reason I would chose a contemporary one) is that most of these people use different notations, introduce different calculi etc.
I've studied Q-analysis and Kalish-Montague calculus for formal predicate logic including set theory and various special notations.

But epistemology (especially the reader I've mentioned above), philosophy of science and philosophy of mind (Churchland, Chalmers and Dennett, Fodor is also very interesting - including neurophilosophy) have been the most interesting and worthwhile for me. (OK, I should include metaethics)

Have fun!

1704. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123779 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:56 pm

Oh, and add to that the Oxford reader on epistemology "Knowledge", by Sven Bernecker and Fred Dretske [Editors]. A collection of original essays on various theories of knowledge. Extremely interesting.

Epistemology is so incredibly complex, and much much harder and more problematic than most people assume.

This is (IMO) a must read for anyone who cares about knowledge - also for any scientist.

1705. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123772 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Tarski and Carnap and Russell - good choices for early 20th century analytical philosophy!
But Nietzsche - don't get me wrong, I love Nietzsche - you won't find many logically conclusive arguments against theism and Christianity in his works. A lot of great cultural criticism and thoughts on the genealogy of ideas.

I do think you know what you're doing. And you seem to be doing it very well indeed.

I recommend William Lycan's "Philosophy of Language: A contemporary introduction" and Quine on Logic, epistemology, predication and existence (his essay-collection "From a logical point of view"). Mind you Quine is very dense and at times extremely complex. So, if you're not familiar, an introduction to formal logic would be extremely helpful.

Philosophy of Science is also very interesting and valuable. Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, Suppes, Snees, Stegmüller and Moulines are the 'must read's here.

...Just a few suggestions, if you're interested.

1706. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123763 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:32 pm

BAEOZ, had a look at the blog.

So much to comment on, so little time. Very interesting thoughts - and IMO highly appropriate and logical. Though a little out of date. It's hard to talk about logic, existence, predication etc on the level of 18th or 19th century philosophy - without the analytical tradition.

Anyway - great blog!

1707. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123753 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Thanks for the links!

1708. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123751 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:19 pm

A not so philosophical problem for God and souls is the 1st law of thermodynamics. Nothing without matter (thus energy) can affect something with matter (energy). So, you can't have a Cartesian mind/soul or God interacting with a human or any part of the universe.

That's the one argument I always bring up with theists and dualists or proponents of the classical concept of free-will. Nothing that isn't a physical entity/event can cause a physical entity/event. Actually, I think I made that point in my post commenting on Kardashovel :)

If you deny that, you deny physics - the discussion is over.

1709. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123747 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:15 pm

BAOZ, you're right of course, but the ordinary language phrase "this is that, this other thing is also that" also has the meaning of subset relation.

1710. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123744 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Well, perfect has that latin origin, literally means that - but I don't know what the original hebrew and the greek says.

Btw, I don't have the link to BAEOZ blog at hand - care to post it? Maybe even a link to that discussion?

1711. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123736 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:06 pm

BAEOZ,

thanks, appreciate you taking up that point. But that first (strict identity relation) wasn't even what I was thinking about, because that's extremely easy to get around by stating that what was meant was not strict identity, but a subset relation, so that God is made up of these three entities.

The omnipotence vs omniscience point is much better, but there are quite good answers to that from the theist point of view (all of which have themselves been subject to critical discussion by atheists) - I recommend the 'Cambridge Companion to Atheism'

The immutability-argument was one of the things I was thinking about, because I can really see no way around that, because there is no way in which 'immutability' can be used to describe an entity that is also described as having desires, as being capable of any any transition from one state to the other - like from being punishing and intervening to loving and hidden, being capable of making a decision etc.

Actually, immutability (which 'perfect', perfectus est - 'finalized' means) excludes doing anything, as that would be a transition of one state to another (not having done something to having done it and all that follows from it).

1712. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123728 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 2:56 pm

al-rawandi,

no, I've never read that book. What specific topics does it address?


btw, no need to ask the professors under which I've studied logic and philosophy of science... I get your point. Just thought it was worth a try.

1713. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123712 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 2:38 pm

No, the logical inconsistency is something entirely different (inherent contradictions in the descriptions) than the objection against interventionist gods.

I am very much willing to state the inconsistencies in the descriptions of the bible. But if the future is going to be anything like the past, that is not going to do much good - because when I point these out, the response has always been pseudo-deconstructivist far-fetched 'interpretations' of scripture to twist its meaning to something contrary to what ordinary language and common sense would make of the descriptions.

But first: There is nothing in scripture to suggest that the 'holy trinity' (of which there is nothing in the bible, that was added later on based on a completely unsubstantiated interpretation of Jesus being the instantiation of 'the word', which is the holy spirit, and 'the word is with god') is physical in any way.

I think it was you who proposed god as a super-advanced alien traveling back in time and making the development of life on earth possible (and - I suppose - somehow starting a causality-trajectory that led to the bible being written), no?
Aside from the fact that this is a completely unsubstantiated hypothesis (since you can't use the bible as evidence because - even contrafactually assuming that its truth claims had any weight as evidence - there is nothing in there which supports that hypothesis more than 'traditional' Christian views, on the contrary), these entities would therefore be subject to natural laws. Of course we have no (nor could we have) complete knowledge of physics... but epistemologically, all we have justification to assume, and to use as premises in arguments is the current state of science. Assuming specific possibilities incoherent with current science would be be idle, unsubstantiated speculation and therefore inadmissible.

So, as has been argued before better than I could by (most prominently) Steve Zara, we have no justification for assuming that any physical entity is capable of what the bible describes the holy trinity of being capable of doing. Including my argument from thermodynamics, we only have justification for assuming that not only no physical entity, but no entity at all (even assuming non-physical entities exist) is capable of doing that.

As I said, I am willing to list the inconsistencies, but I'm almost sure that this will end with you arguing that the 'true' interpretation is one that avoids these obvious inconsistencies, whereas I will argue that this is just baseless ex post facto interpretation contrary to the meaning of the words as determined by their use in ordinary language and the connections they refer to as determined by common sense and logical analysis.

1714. Hitchens V. Boteach

Comment #123551 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 10:41 am

Completely unrelated (sorry), but did any of you read the news that a survey among 3000 British citizens showed that many think Churchill and Gandhi (and others) are fictitious characters, while Sherlock Holmes is historical?

see http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204/od_afp/britainpeoplehistoryoffbeat

1715. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #123547 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 10:29 am

I would love to hear your evidence that God does not exist. Do you know any?

A deist or unspecified god, no. That's just a hypothesis for which there is no need or evidence, Occam's razor takes care of that.

Against the existence of the Christian god - yes.
The description is logically contradictory, therefore it cannot exist.

Against interventionist, non-physical 'gods' in general - yes.
Causal closure of spacetime, ie thermodynamics. Makes it impossible, since only physical events can cause physical events.

1716. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123421 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 6:11 am

I know radiation is a quantum process - as for non-linearity and propagation of effects, I don't think that undermines stochastic determinism.

I really got some work to do now - got a term paper to write and still have to narrow down the topic (something like "Truth, Representation and Intentionality in Neurophilosophy" - but that's way to broad a topic for a term paper) before I present my professor with my ideas, and since he told yesterday that he expects some formal metatheoretical models... well, let's just say this won't be easy.

1717. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123412 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:42 am

Thanks for the correction, Steve - but if quantum "undecidedness" were to have such large scale effects, wouldn't that make even predictions in the macro-world impossible?

Anyway - the point was that quantum effects are accounted for by including stochastic determinism.

1718. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123409 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:37 am

Don't even know that would work. We would have to abandon thermodynamics, the causal closure of spacetime. This alone makes an interventionist god impossible... But of course, I forgot - it's a MIRACLE!

1719. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123403 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:21 am

Not only that - but a the classic notion of free will, as I keep stating, is incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism (ie randomness). What would be needed is uncaused causation.

1720. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123401 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:18 am

But quantum uncertainty, quantum foam and all that stuff takes place on sub-plank lengths, or am I remembering that wrong? So, since for all we know every functional process in our brains takes place on far larger scales (it has even been mathematically proved that quantum-effects in microtubuli cannot amount to any significant effect) I don't see how that is any argument against determinism - especially since even quantum uncertainty is accounted for by including stochastic determinism, not just classical determinism.

...Damn, I'm doing it again.

1721. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123399 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:05 am

Oh well - being predictable is just one more argument against spontaneous causal-power of the will :)

1722. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123397 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:03 am

Pragmatically it doesn't matter anyway.
We have the illusion of being the causal origin of our 'choices', our decisions and there's very probably nothing we can do about that, because it's probably "hard-wired".

But, being a compatibilist - I don't really think there is something to fear, or to want to be ignorant of :)

1723. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123395 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 5:00 am

Damn, am I that predictable? :)

I find it interesting that you don't think that determinism is true. But let's discuss that some other time :)

...just wanted to know, so thanks.

1724. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123390 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 4:48 am

Steve,

I would be interested in reading how you conceive of free will. Do you think that broad determinism is true? (classical and stochastic determinism) Meaning - are you a compatibilist (=there is a conception of "free will" that is compatible with determinism)?

1725. Ad 'likely to offend gay people'

Comment #123363 by MPhil on February 7, 2008 at 3:29 am

There was another very important point missing from your otherwise brilliantly argued post, DavidMJH. Your eloquence, the force of your logically unassailable arguments, meticulously researched and fact-checked are all extremely important - especially the thing about us normal people (white and heterosexual) being 'clean' as opposed to those godless bastards. But you forgot the most important point:


The gays are trying to steal our precious bodily fluids!


I've heard they also poison wells, eat babies and drink the blood of every newborn they sacrifice on the altar of what they call 'freedom'.


.......honestly, crawl back under the rock you came from. You seriously have the nerve to talk about "self above all else"? You want to legislate taste and outdated, inhuman 'morality', you self-centered, arrogant prick. Wanting to deny people their rights as mature, responsible individuals to chose for themselves - wanting to deny them the right to form partnerships with who they love, (or simply find hot) because it doesn't suit your own sense of 'morality'. Desperately you try to rationalize your disdain for homosexuals by claiming that homosexuality is a threat to society - are you a sociologist? A historian? Do you know of any historians who trace the "downfall of a society" back to sexual preferences? Of course not - it's a ridiculous notion, no, a notion that shows your disdain and hatred. And of course, hatred for a certain group of people has never been the source of problems for a society.

Steve was absolutely right to call you on that "eradicated". Maybe you want homosexuals to have to wear a pink triangle on their left sleeve, like the Jews had to with the David-star in Nazi Germany? How about ghettos? Concentration camps?

Chose your words more carefully - or better yet, take my advice from above and crawl back under your rock.
You disgust me!

1726. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #123167 by MPhil on February 6, 2008 at 2:31 pm

There's no point in debating this any further. I stand by what I wrote - and now I have to do some work.

1727. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #123150 by MPhil on February 6, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Seeing as formal deductions are at the basis of all mathematics (just - as I said, very specific), I wouldn't call em uninteresting, unimportant and "a waste of time".

To me that would be like saying that investigating the atomic structure of Uranium is interesting and investigating the fundamental natural laws of the universe is boring and a waste of time. The one is the basis for the other. And investigating the basis for something like mathematics (and conceptual thinking itself)- I personally find that much more interesting. But still, I find mathematics extremely interesting.

So, I think a little respect for the investigation of the basis of all that you're doing would be appropriate.

1728. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #123144 by MPhil on February 6, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Again, misrepresentation. Read the part about "very specific axioms, rules, theorems and sentences"?

Of course these are very specific, and by knowing how to derive theorems and sentences from axioms via inference-rules, and only when you know these specific constrictions, the actual axioms, rules and theorems can you "do" mathematics - only when you know how to construct a system of meaningful grammatical sentences of a certain kind (the constriction on systems of sentences that make them a work of science fiction) do you know how to write science fiction.

But what you're doing in the end is still nothing more than constructing a n-tuple of sentences or deriving theorems and sentences from axioms via rules. It's just very specific, and you have to know these specifics in order to "do it" at all. The specifics make mathematics mathematics, but what is done with these specifics is still logic.
So, again - saying that mathematics is nothing more than a special case of logic is true.

1729. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #123130 by MPhil on February 6, 2008 at 1:37 pm

Bonzai -

Of course science fiction literature is "just" consists of grammatically correct sentences. What else? Of course mathematics is just axioms, inference rules, theorems and sentences. That its very specific axioms, rules, theorems and sentences with doesn't make it something else. That would be like saying that you can find more in science fiction books than meaningful grammatical sentences. The concepts, stories and story-telling is all done via meaningful grammatical sentences.

My point was that it doesn't matter how mathematics is done specifically. However it's done specifically, it's still deriving theorems from axioms according to inference rules. Just as writingscience fiction stories, no matter what the stories, characters etc is still in the end constructing meaningful grammatical sentences.

Thus, I am not missing the point, because saying that mathematics is an extension (EDIT: or rather - nontrivial specification) of logic is true - as I have shown.

And btw, do you think that formal logic has no such things as a calculus? I have written exams where I had to construct formal proofs of over 200 steps. The Kalish-Montague calculus for example is extremely powerful and able to model highly complex states of affairs.

1730. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #123120 by MPhil on February 6, 2008 at 1:24 pm

That just shows that mathematics cannot be captured by any single formal system. I think most working mathematicians wouldn't find that very surprising, it just demonstrates the problem of trying to reduce mathematics to logic and formalized deduction. Most working mathematicians seldom think like that anyway.

Sounds as though you think mathematics is not a formal system. Weird - mathematics is formal and derives theorems and statements from axioms according to a set of inference-rules.

Gödel's incompleteness theorems apply to all formal systems but the most trivial.

1731. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #123107 by MPhil on February 6, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Bonzai:

(so I find the claim that mathematics = logic is also a very poor caricature, it fails to convey the richness of mathematics and conveys very little of the way real mathematics is done. It is typically the philosopher's way of seeing mathematics,--completely missing the point)

Yea, talk about 'completely missing the point'. Either you really haven't understood what I wrote or you're deliberately misrepresenting it.
I didn't say that mathematics is logic - I said that mathematics is an extension of logic. It's structure is logic: Axioms, inference rules, theorems, sentences... that's what logic is - and that's what mathematics is. Logic is (among other things) the science of exactly that - how to correctly derive theorems and sentences from axioms... how to proceed from premises to conclusions, and this is at the core of every conceptual thinking.

And as long as we're being demeaning: Most people without the least inkling of philosophy of science (and of language), especially meta-theory of empirical sciences, frequently think that the modeling of something is that thing itself, constituting the what it describes. Confusing representation with what is being represented. Not seeing that since even "all observations are theory-laden", therefore theorems, inference-rules, functional descriptions and representations are even more conceptual. What an infantile mistake. Concepts are tools to model the world - the only ones in fact. And how sad that we are using such insulting language now.

Normally I wouldn't do that - I'm usually very polite, but I don't like being so blatantly misrepresented and then insulted on top of it when evidently the points I was making passed by entirely unnoticed.

1732. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122716 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Having studied philosophy of science, metatheory of empirical sciences... helps with the evaluation of arguments, at least a little.

1733. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122711 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Nice, thanks... I see if I can get my hands on it.
I'm fine with a few equations btw... just no strange attractors, complex tensor-fields and such things. I'm interested in those also, but I can't handle them (yet - predicting at least 10 years, maybe never)

1734. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122696 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 8:35 pm

I see I've got a lot of reading up to do. I've read Hawking's "brief history of time" and "The universe in a nutshell" at 15, "The Elegant Universe" at 16 (as I said) and a few not very technical articles since then. I'm very interested, always have been, but I don't have the knowledge or experience to handle the high mathematics of such elaborate theories.

I know I keep asking this, and I definitely don't want to get on your nerves, but do you know of any more recent books or papers that critically discuss (super)string theory, modern cosmology etc - which someone like me could understand without being able to handle the hard mathematics?

1735. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122691 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 8:08 pm

Thanks. Now I see the problem. So, this doesn't mean its non-predictive in general, but that very very specific observations based on extremely specific narrow-range-of-values predictions would have to be made - and it's not certain (or far from certain) that string theory can produce them.
Is that about right?

1736. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122685 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:58 pm

Thanks - gonna read up on it.

Also, since a scientific theory is a coherent complex, wouldn't such an observation of specifically predicted radiation corroborate the entire theory, since the same math that predicts the radiation predicts the different realities?

No, as that kind of accuracy is not enough to distinguish between String Theory and other ideas.

Hmm... shouldn't it rather be that when several theories predict an observed event to the same degree of accuracy, that all these theories are corroborated to a small extent, but when there's only one theory predicting it, or predicting it to a much higher degree of accuracy, that it is corroborated more strongly?

1737. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122677 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:36 pm

10^500 different realities? I have a vague recollection of Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", but it's been nearly 8 years since I've read it... and I cannot recollect anything about different realities, the multiple-worlds hypothesis is an interpretation of quantum mechanics besides the Kopenhagen-interpretation. I know string theory works with 10, 11 or 26 dimensions. But please elaborate on the 10^500 realities. Also, since a scientific theory is a coherent complex, wouldn't such an observation of specifically predicted radiation corroborate the entire theory, since the same math that predicts the radiation predicts the different realities?

1738. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122669 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:12 pm

I share the reservations against string theory - being possibly non-falsifiable. But if the mathematical equations of String Theory alone were to predict a specific radiation at a specific event, and that exact type of radiation is then observed, that would corroborate the theory - as it would be a testable prediction. The fact that every event is only ever compatible with a theory that predicts it, not proof of the theory is universal. So, once the theory yields observable predictions, it can be corroborated or falsified... Sure, the above isn't the best example I guess, but if the specific characteristics of the radiation were actually predicted by string theory itself to extreme detail, then an observation of this would be corroboration (the first, - mathematical elegance aside, since it doesn't really count)

1739. Blasphemy

Comment #122452 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 9:28 am

Eloquent as ever. Sad thing it most likely will not be printed.

1740. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #122418 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 8:45 am

Damn - now German "Umlaute" don't get displayed properly either. It's "Wolfgang Stegmueller", but originally, its the German umlaut instead of 'ue'

1741. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #122380 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 8:13 am

Here you go:

J.D. Sneed, The Logical Structure of Mathematical Physics. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1971 (revised edition 1979).

Patrick Suppes, "Foundations of Measurement", "Introduction to Logic" and "Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures"

Wolfgang Stegmüller, "The Structuralist view of Theories" (this is my favourite), "The Structure and Dynamics of Theories"

W. Balzer, C.U. Moulines, J.D. Sneed, "An Architectonic for Science: the Structuralist Approach". Reidel, Dordrecht, 1987.

also (although its not Structuralism, but its predecessor, a unification of Kuhn's and Popper's account):
Imre Lakatos, "The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes"
____________

Also, Popper's "Objective Knowledge" and Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" are "required reading", although out of date.

1742. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #122324 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:34 am

Nice explanation. However, in metatheory of empirical sciences there's ongoing debate over what theories are, and the accounts forwarded are extremely complex, including such concepts as Ramsey-sentences, T-theoreticity, definitions of "theory" via a set-theoretical predicate etc.

The most modern and IMO most successful approach is the structuralist one, championed by Joseph Sneed, Patrick Suppes, Wolfgang Stegmüller and Carlos Ulises Moulines (under the latter of which I studied philosophy of science).

If you're interested, i could direct you to a few very interesting but also very technical books. You need quite a good grasp of formal logic and set theory to understand them - in most cases. But I found it very worthwhile.

1743. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #122238 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 1:00 am

damn - the last sentence of my last post was cut off... replaced it.

1744. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #122229 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 12:37 am

That's an interesting point.
It seem entirely possible that these people who don't regularly question the veracity of their beliefs or have them questioned (who live and work - and think in a rather enclosed world) tend to think about the internal relations and possible modifications of their beliefs, about the conceptual construct by itself and the changes within that construct.
When someone comes along and says "yes, well that's nice fiction, but don't you think it might be unhealthy to treat it as if it had something to do with reality?", they are as baffled as a twenty year old who lives his life as a level-32 paladin in "Dungeons and Dragons" when he is summoned back to reality.

1745. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #122219 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 12:03 am

As always, Cartomancer, it is a true delight to read your post. What I was particularly interested to read was your opinion on Vox Day's "the dark ages weren't really dark" statements. - no real oppression of free thought and scientific progress by the church. I mean, I know the Galileo case is complex and not so sinister as is sometimes depicted. But surely Giordano Bruno and the index librorum prohibitorum prove that there was oppression of free thought and scientific progress where it contradicted dogma?

I know you have been writing about that in some of your posts, but maybe it would be possible for you to post a comment entirely about the veracity of Vox Day's "church in medieval times not really hindering scientific progress and oppressing free thought". That would be extremely helpful - at least for me.

1746. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #122215 by MPhil on February 4, 2008 at 11:53 pm

Well - even in that case there is something to model math on - the necessary relations that arise from the axioms qua conceptions. And since the mind is also a product of the natural world, and has evolved to model the natural world... it's no wonder mathematics is so incredibly successful in precisely modeling (being applied to the entities of) physics, chemistry, biology, sociology etc.

1747. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #122209 by MPhil on February 4, 2008 at 11:33 pm

I really do think you confuse the way things behave and the systematicity of relations among things with our way to model these ways-of-behaving, these relations and their systematicity.

Well, yes I was confusing the use of the words logic and mathematics as previously indicated.

Well, the confusion between mathematics and logic is not what I meant. I meant - as I wrote - the confusion between what is modeled (necessary relations) and the modelling (logic qua science, mathematics qua science).

You are of course free to use "logic" and "mathematics" to refer to the things being modeled instead of the science of those "things" - but I don't think this is helpful.

Also, it seems to me that the necessary relations which logic and in extension mathematics model are relations between (parts of) conceptions - they explore the universal nature of conceptions, which (I forward) arise through evolution in the way outlined above, and can therefore be considered part of nature. Let's face it - we have no access to the world but through conceptual constructs modeled upon sense-data. So there is no way of describing the nature of or relations between entities of the "external world" except for describing the conceptual construct with which we model them.

Lets say that light stimulates my retina in a certain pattern. My brain models these neuronal activation impulses so that I conclude that I am seeing a person sitting on a chair. But I cannot "access" the person, the chair or their relation. I only have the stimulation of my senses and the modeling my mind/brain does when it receives them.

"There is a person sitting on a chair" is already a conceptual construct. One part of the input is recognized by a neuronal pattern-recognition program as a person (assigning the input to the category "person" is conceptualizing), the other as conforming to my concept of "chair". From the relation of the stimuli and the concepts - I conclude that the person has the relation "sitting on" with the chair.

Conceptualization in a world where things behave according to natural laws will itself have necessary elements - necessary patterns and relations. These are what we might call the "laws of logic".

I think we disagree about semantics - I say that we cannot successfully refer to relations in the real world, except to supposed relations in the external world via our conceptions, and that these conceptual constructs are the proper referent.

You seem to use "logic" as referring to what it models, rather then the modeling (the science) itself.

There was a rather interesting discussion on the philosophy of mathematics recently - my position being that while quantity and quality are real categories (can be successfully applied to "things in the external world"), numbers, graphs, mathematical functions etc are conceptual constructs and have no "real/external" referent.

I'll see that I can find the link.

As I said, mathematics explore conceptual space and can be successfully applied because the necessary relations of conceptions reflect the necessary relations between entities (for the evolutionary reason outlined above).

Would you agree that our disagreement is mostly if not altogether about semantics?

btw, sorry about the confrontational first sentence.

1748. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #122201 by MPhil on February 4, 2008 at 11:00 pm

sent2null,

:D

My statements still stand :)

1749. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #122200 by MPhil on February 4, 2008 at 10:52 pm

...I think with over 1700 posts and only enough time to skim through a few paged, I'd say the assumption that we're all just

being such little BITCHES about how he's an annoying arrogant punk

and that we don't

try actually reading the book and taking him to task.

is a little unwarranted.

Yes, the example you mentioned is rather majorly, leg-choppingly wrong. But honestly - all the mistakes, logical fallacies, misrepresentations, self-serving interpretations of history etc really make me doubt that this guy has any sort of brains or balls. If name-calling, egomania and calls upon his minions to astroturf and challange the posters at this site (see the rather futile and amazingly arrogant, entirely unwarranted "read it and weep" kind of posts in this thread) without having any conclusive or even partially substantive arguments is having brains and balls, then I agree. But that is no definition I'd accept.

1750. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #122198 by MPhil on February 4, 2008 at 10:45 pm

Here's the one by BEAOZ:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2192,Irrational-Atheist-trounces-God-deniers,Wold-Net-Daily,page28#120492


And here are mine:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2192,Irrational-Atheist-trounces-God-deniers,Wold-Net-Daily,page31#120973

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2192,Irrational-Atheist-trounces-God-deniers,Wold-Net-Daily,page31#120984

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2192,Irrational-Atheist-trounces-God-deniers,Wold-Net-Daily,page32#121051